


Good Things Come In Trees

by Sachete



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Childhood Friends, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 09:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5824270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sachete/pseuds/Sachete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sprawling backyards, treehouse plans; running barefoot, holding hands; new kid moves in catty-corner; time slows down; summer mourner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Things Come In Trees

We first meet in my backyard. More specifically, in the big live oak next to the fence way back in the corner.

I watch from my porch as the stranger scoots and scrabbles steadily up the tree until he runs out of stable branches, and then he pauses to straddle the join of two limbs, hugging the trunk and staring out over the yard like he’d just conquered it. It’s then that he notices me and waves, unsteady, so he has to lean forward against the trunk again to get his balance. I almost go inside to tell Dave that there’s a stranger climbing trees in our yard, but I change my mind at the last second. I wave back. He grins, I think, but he’s far away. Who is he?

He yells from the top of the tree, but I don’t understand what he’s saying. I yell back, What? He repeats himself, but he’s still too far away, so I shake my head and run barefooted over to him, because why walk when you can run? Why wear shoes when the dewy grass clippings stick to my feet and slime between my toes and it’s not a nice feeling but a feeling nonetheless? I get to the tree and look up to him, the sun stuck in the branches behind him and making it hard to see him without squinting, but I hear him now when he says Hi! I’m Jake English—who’re you? Dave says not to talk to strangers, I say back. He says I’m not a stranger, I’m your new neighbor. I ask where he lives, and the shape of him points behind him at the yard catty-corner to mine, wooded and shady and green compared to my yard with lots of dead grass and sparse fruit trees and an old metal playset that might give someone lockjaw one of these days. I see the space where the four fences between us come together in the corner, and there’s chicken wire covering a gap where the wood posts don’t quite meet, and the metal is bent out of shape from a certain someone climbing over it.

He says This is a really good climbing tree, yanno. I say Yes, of course I know, it’s my tree. I have to climb it now to prove it, and I climb it faster than him and get higher because I’m pretty sure I’m lighter and I know all the footholds he maybe didn’t see. Now he has to look up to me. He’s in focus without the sun blinding me, and I see he’s wearing cargo shorts and blocky glasses and light scratches and skinned knees and the whole picture is textbook boy scout. The poster child for summer. Even without a camera, the image sticks in my mind, and I would remember it for years.

He grins again, his mouth all crooked, a mishmash of baby and adult teeth fighting for space in his jaw. He says again, Who’re you? I say I’m Dirk. Dirk who? Dirk Strider. That’s a really cool name! It’s like a cool superhero name! I say I guess so. English is a pretty cool last name, too. Ya think so? Yeah, I think so. Like we speak English and stuff. Nobody ever said that before. When did you get here, I ask, and he says Yesterday, from Bristol. I got to ride in a plane! Have you ever ridden a plane? I say No, I haven’t, and he says you really need to because it’s awesome, and one day I’m gonna go everywhere in planes and never walk again. I say If you always took planes everywhere then you wouldn’t be able to climb trees. He says I guess that makes sense. He tries to scrabble a bit higher, but I’m still out of reach. I point out the footholds I used and he scales the rest of the tree. There’s only one way up and one branch to sit on. He sits next to me.

I ask him why he’s in my tree if his yard is so full of them, and he says he’s already climbed them all. I thought you only got here yesterday, I say, and he says Yeah, I did. I tell him I want to climb the trees in his yard, but he says none of them are as good as this one, so we stay up in the boughs and plan out a treehouse with a widescreen TV and tunnels connecting to the trees in Jake’s yard, a whole network of treehouses and rope swings and ladders and slides. I say we should be drawing this and writing it down and crunching numbers, whatever that means, so I slip down the tree and run to get my invention book and some pencils and markers and spread them over my back deck. Jake follows me and claims the green marker. I take the orange one. Now we know who thinks of what, he reasons. We eye up the tree and draw it as good as we can and start sticking boxes and lines around the branches like regular architects, I swear. I wish I had real blueprint paper, I tell him, and the white markers, and rulers and compasses and protractors and stuff. The green and orange lines on this flimsy paper don’t quite cut it, but we settle, lying on our stomachs and swinging our legs in the air. When the first plan in my tree is complete, we expand to Jake’s yard, gathering our supplies and moving to his deck. It’s hard to climb over the chicken wire with so much stuff in our arms, so I go first and Jake passes the stuff to me while he clambers over. I see the rusted hinges leftover from a gate built a long time ago. Maybe we could build another one.

I’ve never been in this yard before, and it’s weird not having the sun beating down on my scalp and shoulders, but I like it. Jake’s yard is covered in sweet-gum balls, and I have to pay special attention to the ground as my bare feet navigate. The grass is soft and green, though—not dead. There’s flowers in the beds, big, woody rosemary in full bloom and irises and roses. A wooden playset, rotting and splintering, probably as dangerous as my metal one. Blueberry bushes. I like it here. I wish this was my yard.

We dump the supplies onto the wrought-iron patio set with foam still sticking to it and set to work. Jake might have already climbed all of these trees, but he’s having trouble mapping the locations. He’s wondering if we should build a bunch of individual houses and then connect them, or if we should connect all the trees and then build from there. I say I dunno, maybe make the houses first. Then we don’t have to worry about the map yet. Good idea. We work that into our design.

We don’t keep track of the time because my only watch is sitting halfway disassembled on my workbench (a fold-out metal card table set up in the living room), but I watch the sky and sometimes notice where the sun is in the trees, and the shadows of our markers getting long and dark on the paper. A car rolls up the driveway and a lady comes outside with an armful of groceries and Jake introduces me as his new best friend, and my face doesn’t get red, no-sir, that’s just a sunburn from being outside too long. Jake’s mom asks where I live and I point to my backyard, and she smiles, saying we’ll have to do something about that chicken wire, won’t we? I’d like to meet your parents, Dirk. Would you like to stay for dinner? The house is still a bit cluttered and we’re still low on groceries from the move, but I’m sure we could whip something up. Jake bounces in his chair. I wanna go to Dirk’s house! Another time, Jake. It’s rude to invite yourself.

I nod a lot and say Thank you I’ll be right back and run through the yard and try not to step on too many sweet-gum balls but I’m not paying attention and step on a lot because I’m too busy thinking, wow, I have a best friend who doesn’t live an hour away! And also wondering what Dave’s gonna think and hoping I won’t get in too much trouble for running off without telling him and oh, no, suddenly I’m nervous. I slow down as I get to the back porch and crack the screen door just a little bit. Dave?

The back door opens into the kitchen, and Dave’s standing at the stove with a towel over one shoulder and a spatula in hand, hamburger helper in a big pan and a can of peas in a pot. Where ya been, lil’ man? Have fun with the new neighbor kid? I walk in, bare feet on the yellowed linoleum, and wonder how he knows who I was with all day, eventually chalking it up to the indisputable fact that Dave knows everything, and also that he probably saw us on the porch through the kitchen window. I say, Yeah, his name’s Jake English. We’re best friends now, and we’re gonna make a treehouse colony. His mom wants us to come over for dinner.

Dave sighs. I wish you’d'a told me before I started makin’ our own food, lil’ man. I shrink back a little bit. Sorry. Nah, don’t worry about it. Ya couldn’t'a known. He ruffles my hair and smiles. Dave doesn’t smile very often. I’m glad ya made a new friend. Now, get out some Tupperware. We can eat this tomorrow night.

We put all the food in the fridge and I show Dave how to get to Jake’s house from our backyard. He picks me up and sets me on the other side of the chicken wire. We should probably take this down. One a you kids is gonna get hurt climbin’ over this thing. Soon he’s over, too, and I wanna run, but Dave takes his time, saying things like, I wondered when someone was gonna move in here, and, Couldn’t'a picked a better time to move in. Lookit all these flowers. Man. Jake and his mom greet us at the back door. Evenin’, missus English, I’m David Strider. People call me Dave. Dirk and I live in that house there. David—Dave?—Dave, it’s good to meet you, and it’s Harley, actually. Jade Harley. English was my husband’s name. Oh, sorry. No, don’t worry, it’s an honest mistake.

We go inside. Sorry about the clutter, we just got here yesterday. There’s a smell like butter and onions and garlic when we’re led into the kitchen, and beneath that smell is a stale plastic smell, that smell of a house closed up for a long time, like dust and plaster and paint even though I’m pretty sure this house was built a while ago and nobody’s painted anything recently. There’s empty plastic bags all on the counters and groceries that haven’t been put away and half-emptied boxes of dishes and silverware. I wonder, if this is clutter to Jake’s mom how will Jake feel being at my house. Missus Harley goes to the stove and stirs something. I just started dinner, so Jake, why don’t you show Dirk your bedroom? Dave and I will be here in the kitchen.

We take that advice and run upstairs (there are sixteen steps) and Jake’s room is the first one on the left. There’s boxes in here, too, and a bed made up with dinosaur sheets, and the walls are a soft blue, like robin eggs, and there’s brown blinds over the windows, and those windows are open and letting in the warm evening’s air. Jake gives me a grand tour of the still-packed boxes of clothes and toys, showing off toy pistols that go bang and smoke a little when you pull the trigger because the hammer hits a roll of gunpowder caps. He’s got this big collection of movies on VHS and asks which ones I’ve seen and it turns out I haven’t seen many of them and he says We’ll have to have lots of movie nights where you see all the best movies I have.

He’s got his own little boxy TV that he says doesn’t have cable yet but he’s got a VHS player and a Super Nintendo, and we can play Mario if you want? Here, you can be Mario and I’ll be Luigi. I like green better, anyway. So we play Mario for a little while and though he starts out on the lower levels for my sake, I can see that he’s good at this and has unlocked a lot of levels already. We make a pretty good tag team, and after I learn the ropes he tells me to try a harder level he hasn’t played yet and it only takes us three lives to beat it.

Pretty soon Jake’s mom calls us down and tells us to wash up and sit down at the table because Jake’s not allowed to have food in his room and I think that’s kinda funny but I don’t say anything about it. Jake’s mom is a really good cook. We have chicken and green beans and corn on the cob, and Jake gets lots of corn stuck in his crowded teeth.

Halfway through dinner, Dave starts talking to Jake’s mom about schools and Jake’s going to be attending Queen’s Elementary with me in the fall, maybe we could carpool someday, but I’m not listening too much because fall is far away and Jake and I still have treehouses to build and adventures to have and places to run, games to play and sleepovers to not sleep through and popsicles to eat, fireflies to catch and hands to hold and creeks to explore. Fall is far away. We’ll live like we’re never going back to school and like this summer’s gonna stretch into eternity.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my [Tumblr.](http://sachete.tumblr.com)


End file.
